In the wake of cuts to both Title X, the federal family-planning funding mechanism that provides more than $300 million for health screenings, birth control, and prenatal care (but not abortions) nationwide, and Planned Parenthood (which gets about $75 million annually from the federal government -- none of which can be spent on abortion services), the Maine Choice Coalition held a press conference today, encouraging Mainers contact senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and urge them to vote against such cuts when a similar bill comes before the US Senate.

US House Democrats made a huge concession on women's health the other day, in order to move forward the massive healthcare bill that passed 220-215 on Saturday night. Under pressure from (shocker!) the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as conservative Dems who said they'd hold up passage of the whole shebang if certain abortion restrictions weren't in place (and despite the fact that there is already an existing ban on using federal funds to pay for abortion -- it's called the Hyde Amendment), Nancy Pelosi and other pragmatic politicians allowed the Stupak Amendment (so named for its legislative sponsor, Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan) into the bill.